Can't Take the Sky From Me

[HOBAN WASHBURNE]

Hoban Washburne scratched at the back of his neck as he stared at the street vendor in front of him. He really didn't have the ten credits she was asking for, but they really could use the spare parts for Serenity's engine. He had never been particularly good when it came to haggling. That was Kaylee or Zoe's area of expertise. Kaylee could use her girlish wiles to get what she wanted or needed and Zoe, well Zoe had a certain way of drawing attention to her gun and that stare. . . He'd been on the receiving end of a few of those glares and he could see why they all caved so quickly. He shook himself mentally as he let his attention return to the lady in front of him. The spaced/zoned out look on his face wasn't helping the whole "take me seriously" aspect of his little venture. He straightened his posture and adjusted the color of his blue Hawaiian shirt. "Do you have anything more . . . affordable?" he asked with a meaningful raise of his eyebrows.

The vendor arched her own eyebrow at him and nodded slowly. "Shi, shi," she said, gesturing towards a small door behind her stand with a brown curtain hanging at a precarious angle from the top corner. "The cheaper items are in the back," she informed him. He eyed her warily, a lopsided grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Thanks," he said, making his way inside, his hand at the blaster on his right hip. He wanted those part, but he also wanted to keep his organs. He pushed aside the curtain, stepping into the shadows and stepping back out into open air.

He scratched at the back of his neck, blinking slightly as he realized he wasn't indoors. He didn't even seem to be on the same planet. Were there even shrubs on Shinbone? He'd never seen so much greenery on one planet. This seemed impossible somehow. He blinked a few times, turning around and around. "Hello? Zoe? Kaylee? Mal? . . . Jayne? Anyone?" he called, not really expecting anyone to answer him back. He frowned slightly, a look of perplexed confusion settling on his face as his fists settled on his hips. "Where the dì​yù​ am I?" he asked no one in particular. It wasn't as if anyone was there to listen, but when faced with unfamiliar circumstances, he liked to hear someone talking, even if just himself.

[claire]

Cheerleading practice. Whether she was wearing the red of Union Wells or the powder blue of Costa Verde, it was all essentially the same. A group of girls who thought they were just a little better than the rest of the school because they could walk around in a uniform with a short skirt. Brown haired girls who dyed their hair blond and blondes who went brunette. Rarely ever red heads to begin with. Claire had never really been like the other cheerleaders, though. She had only made the squad at both schools because of sudden openings, and while being popular wasn’t a bad thing it had never been the most important part of her life. She did it because it made her happy, because she was good at it. And it didn’t hurt that she looked damn good in this uniform.

Practice was uneventful as always, and Claire went with the other cheerleaders into the locker room to change. She was facing the lockers, surrounded by the chatter of gossiping girls as she rummaged through her own locker. She tuned it out as background noise as she grabbed her sweatpants and jacket, clutching both in her hands when suddenly… quiet. The chatter was gone. Claire spun around and was greeted with green instead of blue. A garden? Survival mode kicked in and she immediately ducked behind a large bush, hiding herself from her surroundings. What was this place? How did she get here?

That was when she heard the voice. It was a male voice, and older… a lot older than she was, she guessed. He was calling out names she wasn’t familiar with, ending with an almost desperate call to ‘anyone’. She felt his desperation, eager to find something familiar. She’d start with another human at this point. She peeked around the tree she had run behind to get a better visual. Certainly cute, for an older guy, but that wasn’t the thing to focus on here. As the strange man asked himself where he was, she wondered if he was in the same situation as her. Maybe she wasn’t the only person to get dropped into this strange place.

Claire began to weigh her options again, ducking back behind the shrubbery while she thought. What if this was a trap? Disorient her, then steal her powers, or maybe even just try to kill her. Torture, maybe, just to find out what she knew about the others? Yet even while she was listing all of the ways this could go wrong, she couldn’t help but feel like she could trust this guy. Something about his mannerisms, the tone of his voice, said that he wasn’t one of the bad guys. She had met enough of them to tell, it was almost like a sixth sense at this point.

Claire took a deep breath and stood up, making her presence known. She made sure that her movements were slow and her voice calm so as to not cause alarm when the stranger realized she was there. She realized what a sight she must’ve appeared as, a teenage girl popping up in the middle of a garden wearing a cheerleading uniform (though the sweats were still clutched in her hands so at least she could change into them later!), but at least she wouldn’t appear threatening.

“If you figure it out, will you make sure to let me know?” she asked back, a half-smile on her face. Claire held out one neatly manicured hand. “I’m Claire.”

[HOBAN WASHBURNE]

Wash spun himself around when heard the tell tale sounds of footsteps reaching his ears. As he moved, he thought of a great many people it could be behind him: anyone from the crew of Serenity might have been welcome, well perhaps not River -he liked the girl well enough and she made life on the ship interesting, but if he was stranded by himself in a strange place and heard encroaching footsteps from River he had a feeling that they would quickly followed by a swift kick to a vital organ he hadn't even known he had and a sudden and silent death for him- worst possible scenario, he would turn around and see a Reaver or maybe Niska waiting for him- to be honest he wasn't sure which option would be preferable. He figured either way he might end up flayed, always the flaying with them.

Suffice to say when he actually did turn around he hadn't expected to see a rather not so intimidating looking girl in a strange outfit involving a tiny skirt. Well that certainly wasn't what he'd been expecting. In fact this possibility hadn't really crossed his mind. He reminded himself that looks could be deceiving: after all, River didn't exactly look like a mentally unstable alliance made killing machine -- well maybe the mentally unstable part.

Before he could ask any of the many, many questions that popped into his mind (Who are you? Where am I? Do you speak English? All came to mind, though ideally not in that order.) the girl in question spoke. Despite the tension he had been feeling, a smile began to tug at the corners of his lips at her comment. "If I do you'll be at the top of my list," he assured her, smiling helplessly at the situation. "Though the likelihood of me figuring that out, given the generally nonexistent facts, is pretty slim." True he'd had enough bad experiences with strangers in the past few years to make him wary of just about anyone whose track records he hadn't seen, but he liked to think he was a good judge of character and he wasn't getting any immediate sense of danger vibes from her.

She held out her hand as she introduced herself, and he stared at it a moment before grinning again and taking hold of the manicured hand with his own slightly coarse pilot's hand. "Ah, duì​bu​qǐ (sorry)​. I'm Wash," he replied in ways of introduction. There was no hesitation in his response, despite that not being his given name. Wash had and always would be preferable to the name Hoban. He had always secretly suspected that his parents were sadists.

[claire]

Claire hadn't realized the risk she had been taking as she spoke to the strange man in the garden until after she had stopped talking. Who knew how he was going to react? She could heal herself, sure, but she wasn't anything special. She could still be beaten in a decent amount of fights and if he kidnapped her and held her somewhere there was the possibility she wouldn't have been able to escape. He was a lot taller than she was, and he had decent muscles... while certainly not the strongest man she had ever seen she was willing to bet that if they were to get into a fight he could hold his own. If her father was here to witness this carelessness he would’ve rolled his eyes at her for sure.

These were the sorts of thoughts that should have crossed her mind more before she let her guard down and started to walk towards him, striking up a casual conversation like he was just a kid in the cafeteria at school. She had to stop being so trusting of people, especially in strange situations like this one. As the man turned around and listened to her reply, she stopped moving and could feel her muscles tense as she mentally prepared for a test of her fight or flight reflexes. Her arm remained outstretched to keep her appearance causal but it took all of her self control to keep her hand from shaking a little. Truthfully, Claire was usually only half as confident as she appeared.

The moment when the older man's lips curled up into a tiny smile flooded her body with relief. She could feel her arms relax at her sides and her heartbeat slow back to it’s normal pace. He assured her that she’d be the first he’d tell in the event that he found anything out, and introduced himself as Wash. It was nice to have a name to associate with her new acquaintance, however strange that name must’ve been. “Wash. Nice to meet you, Wash,” Claire said, repeating the name to remember it as they shook hands. “I mean, I guess it’s nice to meet you. It’s nice to see another person out here, at least.” Claire told herself to stop speaking before she rambled herself into a hole.

“Did you just sort of… end up here… too?” She couldn’t hide the slightly disappointed tone her voice had taken on with the new knowledge that he didn’t know any more about this place than she did. Of course it would have been too easy to just come across someone with all of the answers. She knew the question was stupid but the silence that had followed their brief introductions had been growing and Claire didn’t know what she was going to do once her conversation with Wash was over. “Where are you from?” She wondered if maybe he was from California as well. He had used a word that she hadn’t understood which was what piqued her interest in his origins, knowing it was just as likely that he was bilingual as it could have been that he was from another country.

“I’m sorry! You don’t have to answer those, I didn’t mean to start an interrogation.” The last thing she needed to do was to scare away the only other person here. Claire looked around them again for any other signs of life. She had never been the best at meeting new people and she had always asked too many questions for her own good;in her mixture of excitement and curiosity about this whole situation she was forgetting general rules of tact. Rules such as don’t drill the person you just met two seconds ago in the middle of a mysterious garden. Or something like that.

[HOBAN WASHBURNE]

Wash grinned and was about return the comment when she amended it. He placed a hand over his heart. "You guess?" he said in a falsely wounded voice. He nodded in a more subdued voice. "Yeah I was beginning to worry that I was all alone here, myself. At least you're not a reaver," he said with a chuckle to show he was just kidding with her . . .mostly. To be perfectly honest he was actually quite relieved that she wasn't a reaver, or any of the other things his often imaginative mind had come up with only moments ago. Not only was he relieved because of that, but he didn't like being left on his own in strange places. In a stressful situation he preferred to be in pairs: preferably with either Mal or Zoe, but anyone who could pass for sane was welcome.

She asked him a few questions, nothing to make him too suspicious of her motives -- not that she really looked like an Alliance officer anyway. They had some pretty strict ideas about uniform and dress code. She seemed less than pleased by his lack of knowledge of the place, but he couldn't change the fact that he was none the wiser. "Don't worry: it's fine," he assured her. Actually casual conversation seemed to be in order right about now. It would clear his mind, maybe help him relax enough to figure out just where they had both ended up. It would make him feel better at any rate. "I don't mind answering. As long as it's strictly off the record," he said the last part conspiratorially and offered her a wink.

"Let's see," he said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "First things first: sorry, but yes I just sort of. . .appeared. One minute I was walking into a shady little shop and the next thing I know, I'm stuck in this goram garden -- not that there's anything wrong with it. It's a very nice garden" He amended his last comment quickly. "I just didn't wake up this morning thinking I would like to appear in some strange garden." He shrugged his shoulders helplessly, pausing to remember her second question. "And I'm from Whittier," he informed her. His planet was nothing special, in fact it was the opposite. It had been particularly polluted to a point that it had inspired him to want to become a pilot so that he could actually get out there and see the stars.

[claire]

The skeptical look that had previously graced Claire’s features was replaced by a relieved smile. “How am I to know that you aren’t some crazed serial killer?” she asked, though her tone was more playful than accusing at this point. A small part of her reminded her to keep her guard up. Sure, he had put her at ease with his joking demeanor, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t just acting to get the advantage. Then he said that he was glad she wasn’t a reaver. Claire wasn’t the sort of person who would claim that she knew everything, but she did know a lot of things. She had never heard of a reaver before, though, and wondered what it was. Not wanting to come across as stupid she decided not to ask, not yet at least. It was bad enough that she was one of the youngest - if not the youngest – person in Terra. She didn’t need to seem unknowledgeable on top of her youth. She kept her mouth shut and just smiled back.

She was glad when Wash didn’t mind all of the questions. He even made another joke about it. She was starting to get a feel for the sort of person he was. He reminded her a lot of some of her friends from Texas, the sort who would make a little joke about everything to either keep themselves calm during moments that troubled them or to ease the worries of friends. No matter what his reasons, she was happy for it. She had been pretty panicked before and it was nice to have someone help to ease those tensions even if it was just for a little while. “Strictly off the record,” she echoed, whispering despite the fact that they were clearly alone in the garden.

Claire listened to his story about how he arrived here. “The same thing happened to me. I was just coming back from cheerleading practice. I was in the locker room and one second I was grabbing my warm-ups out of my locker,” at this point she held up the sweatpants that she clutched in her hand for emphasis. “And when I turned around I was in this garden! Though it is a rather lovely garden…” Claire had always be fond of flowers and took a moment to admire the colors that were around them.

But her thoughts of flowers and cheerleading were cut short as Wash told her where he was from. Whittler? She had never heard of it. Of course, there were many cities around the United States alone she had never heard of, let alone cities from any other number of countries he may have come from. “Whittler? Never heard of it. Where’s that at?” she asked curiously.

((ooc- sorry it's a little short! Wanted to make sure I got this up before I got busy tonight.))

[HOBAN WASHBURNE]

Wash quirked an eyebrow at the relieved smile and comment of the girl. "Who says I'm not?" he replied a hint of mischief in his voice as he tilted his head. If Zoe were here now she'd roll her eyes at him and say he wasn't fooling anyone. The closest he came to serial killing was fish. Apparently everyone but him knew the rule about over feeding them, and it had taken him a few tries to learn what it was he had been doing wrong exactly -- he'd actually suspected suicidal tendencies in those sàng ​xīn ​bìng​kuáng​ little monsters for a while. They stopped letting him into pet stores after a while. That was neither here nor there right now: suffice it to say he was not exactly mentally unstable axe murderer material.

Wash smiled encouragingly at Claire as she repeated his words, even humoring him by whispering. Humor had always been his favorite personal defense mechanism, though in the current situation he was the older one and, if he could make bold judgments based on wardrobe, possibly more experienced: that so rarely happened with him. Perhaps it would help her keep a cool head as well. It certainly couldn't do any harm at any rate.

Wash nodded his head as she went on to explain that she too had been just sort of sucked out of wherever she had been initially. He tilted his head slightly, his arms folding across the cross between rust and wine colored flight suit and pale blue Hawaiin shirt. "Cheerleading?" he repeated curiously. Cheerleading practice, he corrected himself mentally. She'd said it carelessly, like it was something everyone should know about, yet he'd never heard of it which made him at once curious and interested. Of course, at times, he could also be easily distracted, as he was now. She also mentioned the garden and the realization of what that meant hit him finally. "[bHuǎng​hū​ shān​yáng​ zǐ​,

[/b]" he swore under his breath. (Son of an absent-minded goat) If there wer gardens that meant this was likely to be a core planet which meant greater likelihood of being detected by the Alliance. Unless they were the ones who had brought him here in the first place . . but if they had wanted him they would have just transported him on board their craft not here and what beef did they have with this girl. His mental arguments were both assuring and perplexing at once.

As she went on to say she'd never heard of her Wash smiled in false sheepish nature. "Not surprised you've never heard of it," he admitted. "Whittier's not exactly the planet all the tourists flock to, all that pollution in the atmosphere. I flew as far away from there as I could once I graduated from the academy." He had wanted to see the stars and damned if he hadn't and then some. [/blockquote]

[claire]

Claire didn’t drop her guard completely but she did allow herself to relax just the slightest bit more. “I say you’re not,” she replied with that same mischievous tone. She was very glad that Wash was the first person she had come across in this strange place. She had been upset and on edge before, and had she met the wrong type of person then that could’ve changed everything. Her outlook on this situation, her attitude towards people she may meet in the near future, and just life in general. Try as she might to fight it, Claire was definitely influenced by the people around her at times.

“I mean, I could be wrong, and you could try to kill me the second I turn my back on you, not that it’d do you much good,” she added as an afterthought. “But I just don’t think you will. You might not be able to guess just by looking at me, but I’ve had my fair share of dealing with unstable people.” In a way Claire was sort of relieved to be wherever she was right then. There was always the possibility that this was all a set up to get to her but somehow she thought there was more to whatever was going on here. She just wished her dad was here… he would know what to do. He could tell her who she should trust, he knew how to read people better than she could. But now wasn’t the time to start wishing she could rely on other people. Now wasn’t the time to get emotional by realizing just how alone she really was here.

The smile faltered for a moment as she realized all of those things but she was quick to get it back up again. “Yeah… cheerleading,” Claire repeated, unable to understand why he didn’t seem to understand. She was pretty sure that they had cheerleaders everywhere that spoke English - which was what he spoke, primarily - but maybe she was wrong. “You know… we stand on the sidelines and support sports teams, football, basketball…” she felt weird explaining it. “Waving pom poms and all that jazz.”

And then Wash went on to talk about where he was from and everything started to fall into place. His planet!? That implied that wherever he had been taken from you could live on more than one planet… travel through space… he wasn’t from Earth, or at least not the Earth she knew. The way he talked so nonchalantly about leaving his home planet, tourists flocking to different planets, it made her smile falter again. The panic inside of her rose just a little more than it had been before, when she had just thought she was in a strange new land. There was the possibility she wasn’t even on Earth now. Of all the things she had been exposed to back home, everyone with all of their powers, this went above and beyond any of them.

“I’m sorry… this is probably going to sound really stupid to you. But… your home planet, you said? As in, you have been to multiple planets?” It was hard to keep the slight hint of worry or panic or whatever it was from her voice. She had grown used to the idea that almost anything was possible, but this turned even that world upside down. Regaining her senses a little she thought to ask a question that may make more sense out of things. “What… year is it, when you were before you came here?”

[HOBAN WASHBURNE]

Wash smiled: oh he liked this one. He wanted to introduce her to Mal: 'See Mal, some people appreciate my impeccable wit.' To which the Captain would probably reply, 'This girl is obviously out of her proper senses, poor thing." Gāi​sǐ​, even in his head Mal had a good comeback. "Fair enough," Wash replied with a chuckle. He arched an eyebrow as she went on to say that he could try to kill her as soon as she turned her back, but it wouldn't do him any good. "Oh really?" he asked with a grin. "And why's that?" He nodded his head sympathetically as she continued to say that she had dealt with her own fair share of unstable people.

"You and me both," he muttered. He'd lived with Jayne for more years than he cared to remember and he was a few accelerators short of an operational spaceship. Not to mention their little bundle of joy River who could play chase with Kaylee, dump her meal in your hair, and shoot to kill all within one day. He stopped that train of thought: he needed to stop thinking his crew mates and start finding them. "I'm sure you can handle yourself," he agreed.

He saw the smile falter for a moment, but couldn't imagine why it had. Instead he listened to her explanation of what cheerleading was. They stood on the sidelines. . .and cheered. "So you support teams with pom poms," he tried out the strange word and found he liked it: pom pom. "Wacky." Perhaps she was from some strange planet where they had low self esteem and needed girls in tiny skirts to boost moral. Actually they might be on to something with that. He'd never actually been to a sporting event, besides racing a few ships when he went to the academy and there hadn't been cheerleaders there, but perhaps that was just what people needed.

He tilted his head as she went on to question whether or not he'd been on multiple planets. "Well yeah," he said, tilting his head to the side. Was she one of those poor souls who had never made enough money to get off world? "I wouldn't make a very good planet if I've only been to Whittier," he replied with a chuckle. She asked him about the year and he scratched his head. Sometimes it was hard to keep up with just how much time was passing out in space. "2308," he said at length. "Why?"

[claire]

Claire could’ve slapped herself. She had let her guard down for one minute, getting too comfortable with Wash and his joking around that she forgot to watch what she said. She forgot to keep her wits about her; no matter how much she wanted to pretend this was just a normal day things were really terribly wrong. “Well, what good would it do you?” she replied, as though that was the way she had intended the comment. “I mean, I may not be much help, but I’m certainly not going to do any harm.” She had to be more careful. After all, she was used to living one lie after another, so doing it in a new place shouldn’t be that difficult.

The thought crossed her mind for a brief moment to tell him the truth. To be open and honest about what she was, about who she was, and see what happened. But what if he wasn’t one of the good guys? What if someone was listening in on them? Or what if, like so many other people in her life, he found out about her and that drove him away? No, it would be best to push that thought from her head entirely. She did just that, turning her attention back to the conversation at hand.

She wondered what sorts of unstable people he had dealt with in his lifetime, and thought momentarily about Sylar. Was he here, too? Had he brought her here? If he had managed to find out how to teleport… she didn’t even want to think about what the world would be like then. She wasn’t sure if Wash meant it when he said he thought she could take care of herself. Was he just saying that to make her feel better? She wouldn’t have blamed him – after all, she was a teenager in a cheerleading uniform, how seriously could anyone take her?

“”You’ve never seen a cheerleader before?” Claire asked incredulously. “Don’t you have sports where you come from?” And then came the comments about where Wash was from. About his home planet. About the year he was from. Whittier, and the year 2308. Another planet. The future. The color drained from Claire’s face a little as she processed this information and her face got serious as she tried to think of something, anything to say. Just a year ago she had been made aware of people on Earth with special powers. She had even heard there was someone who could travel through time. But the idea of someone living in the future, of living a life of flying between planets on a daily basis, somehow that all just hit her harder than she had anticipated.

“Because… because I’m from the planet Earth. In the year 2007.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

[HOBAN WASHBURNE]

"Ah, touche," Wash conceded to her explanation. "It would hardly be strategically sound." The smile didn't leave his face as his mind registered that this was probably why people didn't trust him around small children. Too bad Zoe couldn't be here to see this, maybe she'd realize that this one, while not the best, was still one of the many reasons he felt he shouldn't reproduce. I could write you a list

[/b]" he could almost here the voice of Mr. Universe, though he'd always just be Laurence the nerd to him, in his ears. He pushed those thoughts out of his head. He really was having a hard time staying focused wasn't he? He supposed that was excusable what with the being snatched off of Dyton and just sort of dropped off on this strange planet . His mind was allowed to be all over the place. . .more so than usual.

As the girl, Claire he reminded himself, went on to ask if they had sports where he came from he shrugged his shoulders. "Whittier wasn't big on sports," he replied. "A bit of drag racing, but nothing big." He enjoyed shooting the ball around on the ship with the others, but had never connected with the world of professional sports the way most people had. Trying to keep up with it would have been too taxing for his line of work: making sure a ship stayed on course, out maneuvering Alliance ships, pirates and weavers had this way of sucking up your free time. "I don't have a lot of time for sports," he added vaguely. Though she seemed pretty trustworthy, it just didn't do to tell people you were part of Serenity's crew unless you knew you could trust them.

He watched as the color seemed to drain from her face and then turn serious. "You ok?" he asked, humor gone from his voice and replaced with a hint of concern. At her response, the smirk returned to his features. "Yeah sure, pull the other one," he said with a small chuckle. He stared at her a moment, noticing that he expression hadn't changed: she wasn't smiling like she had been before. The joking wasn't the same. "That's impossible," he said, his smile drooping. "Earth doesn't, hasn't existed for centuries," he stated firmly. That's what all the terra-formed planets were for. She seemed to think she was from a time that he'd read about in history books . . . well that he'd pretended to read about in history books. A time back when Earth had still existed in all it's watery planet goodness. "That can't be possible," he added a bit more feebly. [/blockquote]

[claire]

Claire didn’t show the relief that she felt so powerfully flood through her entire being as Wash agreed that killing her wouldn’t be ‘strategically sound’. Even if he had suspected there had been more to her comment than she let on, he didn’t look like he was going to pursue the subject. Claire was pretty sure he didn’t read more into it which was great for her, after all, what more could the teenager in the cheerleading outfit really have meant by a statement like that anyway? She was glad, for once, that she was a teenage girl. She didn’t know anything about these people and she wasn’t about to just go giving up her biggest secret, least of all to a complete stranger.

When Wash mentioned drag racing, Claire’s mind naturally went straight for images of street car racing. It was odd for that to be the only sport in a city, or country, or whatever it was that Whittier was. No baseball? Not even soccer? Claire had never been overly fond of the sport but from what she knew it was pretty much the closest thing to an international sport that there was. “It would be a bit pointless to cheer on drag racing,” she agreed, still trying to imagine a life without sports. Especially coming from Odessa, Texas, sports were pretty much the life of a small town. Friday nights ranked right up there with Sunday morning church services by way of ‘mandatory let ye be shunned’ weekly activities. As a matter of fact, during those big rivalry games she was willing to bet money that there would be more people at the football game than at church that week, if only because of the excessive partying and celebrating (or mourning) that went into Friday night and Saturday. One of the weirdest things about her move to California was how football was just another thing in Costa Verde. It was important, yeah, and people liked them to win, but it wasn’t quite the way of life that it was in Texas. There was no go big or go home feel to it. Teenagers roamed leisurely around the stands, some just hanging out and chatting instead of watching the game at all. It was an actual effort to get anyone to participate in the cheers, and that alone was enough to make her miss home.

Claire knew that she was reacting poorly to the news that he was from another planet in the future. She knew that she should be able to take things things in stride, to process them and figure out what to make of it. But for some reason after she heard his words her brain had just shut down. She supposed that part of it could’ve been the sudden change in direction the conversation had taken. One second it was joking tones and talk of sports, and the next…

Shaking her head as Wash asked her if she was ok she managed to nod her head a few times. “Yeah…” was all she said before telling him where she was from. Now it was his time to react to what was apparently startling news. His smile disappeared from his face and she noticed that he was a completely different person when he was being serious.

“Do you think it’s any easier for me to think that you’re from the future? A future where Earth doesn’t exist, for that matter.” This was a troubling thought for her, wondering what had caused the demise of the planet. Had it been the specials, just like her dad feared? Could it be people like her who had brought about the end of the world as she knew it and created a need for living on other planets? At least his existence showed that humans - assuming he was human, after all - lived on somehow. Artificial planets? Finding planets that were similar to Earth? She didn’t have time to think on that just now. “I promise you that I’m not lying. One second I was at school on Earth, and the next I was here. I’m from your past, apparently, and you’re from my future.” Claire thought that maybe if she said it out loud once or twice that it would be easier to accept, but it wasn’t. She was looking at a man from the future.

[HOBAN WASHBURNE]

Wash chuckled softly at her words. "Yeah I think those pom poms and cheering might be a bit distracting," he agreed. He could just imagine it: gearing up the ships, raving around the corner and suddenly he'd hear something over the thrum of the engine. He'd try to make out what they were saying and pow, boom there goes the second engine and front half of his ship. No cheer-leading was probably best left to other sports that didn't require so much focus or end up engulfing the participants in flames. Not to mention the fact that not all of his races had been entirely legal in the first place. He doubted they had special "hush hush race" cheer-leading either. He allowed his mind to fully process the fact that he had been thinking about racing ships and cheer-leading for a good ten minutes while stranded in a strange and unfamiliar territory. There a logic at work, he thought sarcastically to himself.

But it was better than thinking about the alternative: that this girl had popped into this place from an Earth that he had only heard about. I men that shouldn't even be physically possible, should it? Too bad the Shepherd wasn't here, maybe he could shed some mystical light on the subject, or maybe even crazy River who might mumble something that would link everything together for him. He could understand why the happy look had disappeared from Claire's face not moments ago. He was having a hard time coping with this, let alone someone from such a pure and primitive lifestyle.

As she asked him the question, probably rhetorical but then when had he adhered to those grammatical rules, he shook his head. "No," he said slowly. He supposed it might be more troubling for her, what with him already knowing what had happened to her and her planet - well not her specifically-. He wasn't even sure he was admitting to believing that she came from where and when she said she did. She went on to affirm that she had come from a class on Earth and just appeared on this place, said she wasn't lying. What would she gain from lying to him anyway? If you were going to lie about where you came from, wouldn't you just say, Shinbone or Argos. . .not Earth?

He sucked in a deep breath, his hands running through his short hair helplessly. "Zhè​shì​ kuáng," he murmered more to himself. (This is crazy/nuts). He threw his hands up helplessly. He probably shouldn't even try to understand this, it would only make his head hurt. . .more than it already did. "So you're from Earth. . ." he began. "What's it like? I mean I've heard all the stories, but really?"

[claire]

This was a moment when Claire found it easy to admit that she would not have minded having her father around. Sure, he was overbearing, and sure, he acted like he knew what was best for everyone all of the time even when he definitely did not, but he only acted like he knew everything because he did happen to know a lot about a lot of things. There was a chance that he knew about the future, that he knew of specials (what he referred to people with powers, like Claire, as) who had been to years farther than she could even imagine, maybe. It would be nice to be able to ask him at the very least. But no, she was stranded here without a single familiar face around her.

She may have complained about being or feeling alone back at home, but the truth was that she always had someone around her that she could at least relate to, sympathize with, or share a secret with, even if it was just an accidental friend at school. She always had a family to come back to. But at this moment she had to deal with these things on her own, truly on her own, for the first time in her seventeen years of life. This was definitely going to be one of those life-changing experiences.

Though the question had been rhetorical she was glad that Wash agreed with her. She was doing her best to keep herself calm, to keep her thoughts logical. She didn’t want to jump into a series of a billion questions - she could see his expression change, his attitude towards her seeming more skeptical now that she said she was from Earth. Of course, she didn’t blame him. She was skeptical of all of this guy-from-the-future business, though she supposed she was just more willing to accept his words as truth after the recent events in her life.

After a few exasperated movements Wash finally gave in and asked her some questions about Earth. “Earth?” she repeated, feeling a little silly thinking about describing the planet Earth. “All the stories? There are stories about Earth?” This whole concept seemed laughable to her until she remembered how serious the idea of there being no Earth was. No Earth. Weird. “Well, uhhh…. it’s mostly water, I guess. I think it’s 70% water, or something. And there are more plants and animals than I can name, and tons of life in the oceans, too. We have space shuttles, rocket ships that can go to the moon and rockets that have sent things to other planets, but we’ve only gone out as far as the moon with people yet. I don’t know… everything about it just seems so ordinary to me, is there anything specific you wanted to know?”

[HOBAN WASHBURNE]

Wash was both impressed and yet surprised to see that Claire, this girl from the distant past apparently, was taking things in stride. Not taking things well exactly, she kind of looked like someone had canceled Christmas or stepped on a puppy. Of course, if he tried to put himself in her shoes -well his feet wouldn't fit for starters- he probably wouldn't be reacting too well either. She was finding out that her planet didn't exist in the future: that her home didn't exist in the future. The mental role reversal was starting to give him a headache. Perhaps it would be better if he just stuck with trying to wrap his head around his own situation for now.

His own situation was confusing, but he was willing to accept it for what it was. He had been dropped off on some strange planet -he could only imagine when- along with some girl who had either discovered the magical wonders of time travel or, as she had explained, been sucked out of her own time and place and dropped off along with him. There were stranger things out there in the verse, though. Those geese jugglers came to mind easily enough.

Though he had donned a more serious exterior at her revelation that she was from Earth, he couldn't help but grin again as he was given the opportunity to learn about the planet second hand. He couldn't wait to lord that over the others, just before he spilled everything to them of course. . . Of course the odds that they would actually believe him and not attribute all of this to his over active imagination were staggering. She seemed confused by his question at first. "Of course there are stories," he said with a soft chuckle. "How else would we know about it? I mean aside from the stuff you learn in textbooks." His lips quirked up into a lopsided grin as she described Earth in almost text book fashion. All of what she was saying sounded about right, and though he fought the urge to scoff as she mentioned the shuttles only going to the moon he couldn't' quite suppress it.

"Only to the moon?" he murmured. "Sounds kind of limited, but you'll get out there eventually, don't worry." He tilted his head to the side as she asked him what he want to know. Rén​, what didn't he what to know? "I guess, I mean what was -is for you, sorry - life like back then?" he asked at length.